Word vomit occasionally sprinkled with nuggets of wisdom.

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Yesterday

Convocation was a blur. The honorary degree recipient, Veronica Tennant, was horribly full of herself and about 90% of her speech was about how wonderful she was. One of my favourite profs got the Faculty of Arts teaching award. I almost cried six times and barely kept myself under control during ‘O Canada’ at the end.

Dinner last night was at Au Pied de Cochon and was, I think, food-wise, the most amazing dinner I’ve had in my five years here in Montréal. We shared a foie gras poutine for an entrée and then I had the Duck in a Can, where they literally put into a can and have it sealed half a breast of duck, foie gras, garlic, thyme, other stuff that I don’t remember and then cook the can, which they bring to your table, open and dump onto your plate, which has mashed potatoes on it. The duck melts in your mouth, and all of the seasonings make the mashed potatoes into a sort of gooey yumminess. I couldn’t finish it, but I didn’t want to stop eating. Cooler than my dinner, though, was my roommate who had–get this–sting ray! Way too salty for my tastes, but she loved it. I kind of wanted to get one of their seafood platters just for the presentation alone (picture a 3-tiered sort-of plate tree overflowing with seafood, crab legs all akimbo jutting up from the top tier), but I figured that seafood is going to get really familiar really quickly in Maine so I should get something that I wouldn’t normally. Hence the Duck in a Can.

As if this all wasn’t enough, I then had to go to Mado to meet some friends for drinks. They’re probably going to come visit me in a few weeks when they’re in Boston, so it wasn’t really a good bye so much as an à bientôt. Still, it’s not as if I can phone them up to see if they want to go out for drinks. And I’ll miss all of their wonderful parties. And I’ll miss them, of course, too.

The packing continues today along with administrative things like closing my bank account and making sure that the University don’t try to direct deposit my last pay cheque. As I have not had the time to rent it, I think I’m just going to buy Premier Juillet and enjoy it once I get settled in Maine. I managed never actually to move on 1st July, but it seems an appropriate memento to have of my time here all the same, along with my Denys Arcand films–I still wish I’d graduated last year so that I could have had Denys Arcand as my graduation speaker, especially now after mine sucked.

At any rate, I should go start my day or perhaps try to sleep a bit more before starting my day.